The Most Expensive Punch

Before he could finish speaking.

"Crack."

A crisp sound of stone breaking came from the far end of the ravine.

It was soft. Casual. Like someone turning over beneath the ruins.

Meruem's gaze sharpened slightly as he turned to look.

In the stands, hundreds of millions of people held their breath at once.

The rubble began to shift slowly. An alloy plate was pushed aside from beneath it and fell to the ground with a dull thud. Then, a dust-covered hand reached out through a gap in the debris.

That hand casually brushed aside several chunks of rubble pinning it down, and then—

Saitama sat up from the pile of ruins.

He did not stand up immediately. He sat amid the rubble with his head lowered, looking at his feet.

Both feet were bare. His last wooden sandal had flown off during the third attack, and now it was buried somewhere beneath the debris.

Saitama was silent for three seconds.

Then he raised his head and said in a completely unfocused tone, "Now this is really troublesome."

Not a single one of the hundreds of millions watching could say a word.

He patted the dust from his head, then stared blankly at the utterly wrecked arena around him before looking down at himself—his yellow jumpsuit was completely ruined, torn open across the back, its sleeves ripped to the elbows. The whole outfit hung from him like a rag.

"My clothes are completely unwearable," he said.

He stood up and began pulling away the torn remnants of the protective net tangled around his legs, as if he were clearing away some annoying clutter. He was not angry, nor was he flustered. He simply looked like an ordinary person troubled by life's little inconveniences.

There was not even a pale mark on